PMP Lessons Learned with Dan Zrymiak

Recording to the cloud.

Perfect. Can you hear me?

Yeah, I—

okay.

Good morning, everyone. I can hear some background music, so if you've got background, please put your stuff on mute. Thank you, thank you very much for the invitation to come, and I, as mentioned, I wrote the exam, but It was the end of a fairly long journey. So coming back over a year when I first became acquainted with the Exams PM, I attended the presentations and I found it very impressive to just get everyone— get everything all in one package. So what I'd like to do is take about 5 minutes to summarize why I found this Exams PM to be very helpful for me. And then I'll take your questions as far as the exam and preparation. So the very first thing is that the application— PMI's application is quite stringent. There's a strict protocol. And one of the things is a description of what your project experience is, but you have to do it in a confined space. So the PM exam or exams PM has Examples of how to communicate that information effectively but concisely. So I recommend that if you haven't done your application yet, before you do that, review the resources that Exams PM has and, and then apply that to your own experiences. Because if you don't have that right, that could inhibit your ability to write the exam. Also, In terms of my own pathway, I was— my application was actually flagged for audit. So what that meant was that anyone I had as a contact person, they had to give a confirmation, an affirmative confirmation that what I claimed was valid. They had to put that into a sealed envelope, send it to me, and And then I would send it on to PMI. This is very— it's a constant process, and I think if you do your application correctly, it will go very smoothly. But that's something that when you apply, you should keep that in mind. I like the fact that Examspm had the 35-hour course. I've taken various courses throughout in preparation in advance of that. But in doing this through ExamsPM, that gave a single point of reference which was accepted by PMI, so that fulfills the educational component. And having that, that in addition to my other, my work and my— I had a degree, so it made the application much easier. And so I'm very grateful for that. And the course itself, was a very— it was aligned very closely with the Project Management Body of Knowledge, and it came at a very good pace and with a lot of cross-references and repetition that made it very palatable to learn and prepare. So I think that as you're doing this course, if you're doing it, follow the details and definition, and also download that as a PMI member. You get access to the digital copy of the Project Management Body of Knowledge, so have that for cross-referencing, and that way you know that whatever you learn, you're getting alignment to what's gonna be on the exam. And as far as preparing for the exam, as—

We look forward to seeing someone—

—that exam, work closely to it. Okay, can everyone hear me? Yes, I should be back on.

Basically, I had to claim back the host to just mute everybody because there was a lot of background noise there. So I just muted Everyone, so we should be good to go now.

Okay, I'm back on. Thank you. I got to the point where I committed to doing the exam, so then it became a very structured approach of doing the practice exams. And just immediately prior to the exam, there was a new influx of questions from Examspm, which I found particularly helpful. Because you broke it down by knowledge and process areas. So that was very good, not just to practice doing exams, but also the areas in which I came up short. Those are highlighted so that I could investigate more closely and understand what needed to— where I needed to devote more attention. What I did to complement this was I went to the library. I'm fortunate to live in a major center where There are multiple library branches, so it was good to get additional PMP preparation at no— at the cost of a library card and have that to supplement the core program. So in short, I was able to use ExamSPM's resources and services for the application, for the educational course, and for the study and preparation Which the most valuable was the practice exams. And I will say that the PMP exam covers a lot of information, but it does so in a situational way. So you have to know the context, you have to read the questions very carefully. And it's not just something that you can brain dump and memorize and regurgitate. You have to have a fundamental understanding of the project. And I think that Examspm's references help you to get that comfort and contextual knowledge of the project in a way that'll help improve your chances with PMP. So at this point, I'll open up and with any questions, either verbally or through the chat, why don't I start with our host and moderator on what questions you want me to prioritize first?

Perfect. So I will flip the host back to you now that I muted everybody. Flipping the host back to you so now you can record again. Okay, so the first question I see here is from Claretta. She asked, what was the hardest part of exam and did you need all the time allocated for the exam?

Oh, that's— thank you. I wrote the exam at a Pearson site. So the hardest part was actually getting into the thing. It's, it's what I call a zero-trust environment. You have to have your ID. You have to empty your pockets and all your contents into your— into a locker. And everything you do, you must be escorted. Even I had to show my empty pockets. As you can see, I wear eyeglasses. I had to put my eyeglasses on a surface so they could— so again, just getting in And then, you know, one of the tactics is to do the brain dump. You cannot start the brain dump until the clock starts running. Otherwise, because they can pull it, they can pull you away from the exam. So you have to follow their rules very rigorously. Did I need all the time? Yes, right to the last second of the last minute. It took a— for me, it took about 2 hours and 45 minutes to do every question once. And then checking the questions. Part of it, it's about pacing, but I found myself with 10 minutes left and still 50 questions to check. So I really escalated the pace, but I got to question 200 just as the time elapsed, and then I had to submit the question. So yes, I did need it. And I think just steadily keeping pace on all the questions and making sure you're making the necessary progress.

Right, perfect. McGill asked, can you share your experience preparing for the theories and tools needed?

Yeah, that's the first thing is there's no substitute for life experience, especially when I had the fortunate— I was fortunate to work in Agile and I could draw from my Agile experience on some of the Agile questions that they asked. So because I really did use the burndown charts, really did have the scrums. The course, the 35-hour course that's done through ExamsPM is relevant. So I think that that's a very good foundation. But if you've done something similar, that's also a very good thing. But then as you get close to the date, do lots of tests, but not just follow— not just to record tests, follow carefully Where you come up short or where you got confused and make sure that— make sure you understand why you got confused. For example, distinguishing between work performance data, work performance information, work performance reports on tests. They all look the same and it's really easy to pick the wrong answer. So having a very sharp grasp of those will be very helpful.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so next question is from Nikhil, and he asked, what all did you write in the brain dump?

Well, thank you. And this is another thing where the presentation on memorization techniques was very helpful. It's— I wrote the 49 processes, and I used the techniques of the DCDCD, SADID, IPPP on the planning. The DAT is correct on the managing, and then the MCCCC, MMCM for the monitoring and controlling. I flipped it. I did P and V instead of VP because as you fill it out enough times, I must have done that chart at least 30 times prior to the exam, and I could probably do it on demand. I predict that 10 years from now, I'll probably still be able to do it on demand. So I did that. And I also did the core formulas for CPI, SPI, cost variance, schedule variance, and then estimate at complete, estimate to complete, and to complete index. And I found those to be very helpful. I also did the communication channels and the net present or net The present value, future value. So a few basic formulas, and but definitely the 49 processes.

Right. So I just dropped the link to the, to the chart with the, the DC, DC, DC, and then the MC, MC, etc., into the chat. So if you want the process chart with those in it, then you can just You know, download that chart. So I just dropped it for your reference to what Daniel was talking about. Okay.

Just before I move from that, I also did a variation on them. I did each line. So for example, in scope there are 4 lines, in schedule there are 5 lines, in risk there are 5 lines, so that by having a line, then that would tell me how much to fill out. So, and that, that worked for me. Other people have different Perfect.

Okay, next question is from Sidrick, and he asked, did they give you a calculator?

Yes, they actually— there's an online calculator on screen, but they also give you the option for a physical calculator. I'm an old-school guy, so I did the physical one.

That's great, because back in the days when they only gave you the Windows based calculator. So it's good that they give you the physical ones now as well.

It's a simplistic arithmetic calculator. There's no— for example, I like if you're dividing, I like the 1 over x so you can flip the numerator and denominator. These calculators didn't have that. But otherwise, it functioned well enough to do the things.

In terms—

because it's multiple choice, There will always be an answer. If you make the wrong calculation or you get the wrong formula, it will show up as one of the responses. So you have to be very careful with what you select.

Gotcha. Next question is from Patricia, and she asks, can you go back to the previous question to review or modify?

You can, yes. You can travel. And it's just like in the simulator for exams PM. You can travel question by question, or you can do a sidebar and go to a specific— like, let's say you're on question 142 and you realize that question 80 is the same tactic. And that's actually a good thing because if you're attentive, sometimes the text of one question will give you the answer for a previous question. So Kind of, you get things to jot down. Jot down in mind if something is— you're not sure. You can also flag a question for review. So that's a good way to keep, you know, draw attention. So let's say, because the hardest question is when you have what looks like 2 correct responses and you have to choose between them. So definitely flag those.

Right. Right, right, right. That's a great tip. I love that tip where you said, you know, if you don't know the answer to one question, mark it for review, and the question and its further question you'll see down in your exam might actually give you the answers to them. So that's a really great tip. Did you write any ITTOs in your brain dump?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I did the— well, only that where there came things like, for me, the work performance data information and reports was very important. But otherwise, you know, there's so many ITTOs that— brain dump is tricky because you should give yourself a fixed time. For me, it took about 7 minutes, and that's time that That's exam writing time. I also took a break, a personal break within the exam. Sitting 2 hours in one place, especially wrote my exam at 8 in the morning. So you should build in, if you have to take a 10-minute break within your exam, have that expectation as well.

Yeah, I just dropped a link to a sample break dump. I see Rodney asking just in the chat, can you tell us what you had in the brain dump? So I just dropped a link of a sample brain dump. This isn't Daniel's exact brain dump, but it's a brain dump done by a past student. So just so that you guys have an idea of what you want to write. In general, everyone's brain dump is going to be a little different. Just a quick note about that. You just want to kind of, you know, think about What you need, you know, in order to really best approach the exam. Like, one good thing I always suggest to put on the brain dump is the 49 process chart, just so that you can see where all the processes are, how they link together. And it's one thing that's really easy to blank out on, like when you're writing your exam and suddenly it's like, you know, you get nervous and maybe just forget a process or two. So it's just good to have that. With you, you know, in the beginning of your exam. And you can also take a look at the link I just put in the chat for some other ideas you could put into your brain dump. Now, the main thing is you don't want to take more than 10 minutes to write your brain dump, right? So, and always like practice drawing it out beforehand because you're not going to have a ruler, you're not going to have an eraser. So really try to, you know, draw out the lines and the grids and Make sure you can get it down to about between 5 to 10 minutes, whatever you've decided to put on your brain dump. It's a great thing to practice drawing a couple of times before your actual exam. Now, last thing I want to say about brain dump before we move on is that it is not mandatory. There has been people in the past who has passed their PMP exam with flying colors without a brain dump. So whether you decide to use a brain dump or not, it's up to you. And a great way to see if it is something that will help you or not is by doing the practice exams. Is it something, you know, so some people do really well just diving right into the exam. Some people, you know, just like to have 5 minutes to collect their thoughts before diving into the exam. Both are fine. It really depends on your learning style and what works best for you.

I think as a memorization technique, I found it personally very helpful because PMP has some tricky wrong responses that if you don't know it, they look convincing. But if you know the 49 processes, you can recognize on site that it's gibberish. So if they say administer risks, there's no such process. But if you're not— unless you know that from having done the 49 processes, you can easily be swayed into that.

Right. Oh, that's a— that brings up a really great point. Daniel, when you said if there's unfamiliar terms, if you see an unfamiliar term in one of the 4 choices, that choice is not correct. They just— they're just saying something convincing to try to convince you that that is the right choice, but that choice is probably not right if you have never seen that term before. They try to sometimes throw out some fancy terms that sounds right just to throw you off. So yeah, that's a great Great tip there. So next question is from Mina, and it's, will there be a lot, a lot of calculation questions?

It's— from what I've read, every test is different. You should expect anywhere from 10 to 20 calculation questions. There was one, and— but some of these questions could be seeded ones that might not work against you. There was one that I struggled with in particular. And so the technique that Examspm advocates is always write out your variables with each question, and then you can have that to set up your formula. Not everything is needed. Sometimes they give you 5 variables, but you only need 2 of them to get to the answer. So Yeah, 10. And those ones do take longer. So if you're finding that it's been 5 minutes and you still don't have a solution, just flag it and then come back to it at the end.

Awesome. Okay, next question is from Cedric and is, did you take any pause to use the bathroom and how is the time affected in that case? How much is the time, I mean?

Yes, I— and because I did it at the Pearson Centre, it's more than just getting up from your home. You have to alert the person, they have to escort you, they have to do something to your computer terminal, and then you walk out. Then you return, they resume your check. I had to put my glasses on the spinning table again, and then I'm escorted back to my seat and I could resume. So Fortunately, I was able to do that in a confined time. But yeah, that's— I had to— your question, yes. And if you have, you know, something that's going to take a bit longer, that could, you know, that could be a risk. So just hopefully you don't have a disrupted exam period because that 4 hours goes very quickly.

Okay, so an email actually just came in from a student of ours, and she or he has a lot of questions for you.

Oh, good.

Okay, so it asked to nominate— I'm just reading it out, that's why I'm looking down, because it came in, right, like literally 11:20. Which is right now Eastern time. OK, so if asked to nominate 3 rank-wise, then what would you— what would they be? OK, so wait. OK, which simulator do you think is best and why? If asked to nominate 3 rank-wise, then what would they be?

Are you talking about the exam simulator?

Correct. Yeah.

I— my personal preference was the ones that were broken out by process area because that's also how your exam is scored. So with the planning, the executing, monitoring, controlling, I like those because you don't know. It's easy when you do it on the knowledge areas. If you're doing communication and the question comes up, you know, you're going to bias towards communication because that's part of that chapter. But when it's more neutral, you don't know where the question's coming from. So that's a better test. That said, I think that the questions I struggled with on the PMP were ones that were situational. Like, it would give a story, your vendor just closed their factory, what do you do next? And then give you 4 options and you have to pick the best one. So because it's not straight memorization, you have to be really thoughtful and look at the context of the question and the options available.

Okay. Okay, perfect. There's a lot of questions. It's like a page here we have. Okay, so which questions in the bank simulator did he find most similar to the actual PMP exam, which he just answered?

Yeah.

In the exam, do you find questions related to Agile or sections in PMBOK such as tailoring considerations, key concepts, emerging Practices in agile environment, etc.?

There, there were some agile that were introduced, but those are within the core PMBOK. What I recommend is, as you're learning and doing this stuff, check the Exams PM reference, but also Exams PM gives the PMBOK clause and section. So follow that directly. Also in the ITTO, If you read it carefully, you will see that they include some agile artifacts. And, um, you know, it's, uh, especially in terms of the, the type of project. So, um, I'm— my answer kind of got away from the question. What was— did that touch on the question? I started to go on a bit of a tangent.

Yeah. So he was asking if you saw a lot of questions on tailoring considerations, uh, key Concept emerging practices, those sections of the exam.

Were there a lot of questions on those? Not a lot. It stuck pretty much to the core of the PMBOK. It just stuck to the core.

Yeah. What about agile? Did you see a lot of agile? Yes.

Yes. When I say a lot, I would say in the range of 15 to 20%. Really? Wow. Yeah.

And they go up to 50 if you take it. past July 1st, 2020.

Yeah.

The new exam questions are going to be coming out and the new alignment is coming out as well for the PMP exam. So take it before July 1st, 2020. So your last day would be June 30th, 2020. PMI did move back the date by 6 months. It used to be December 15th, 2019. But they moved back, so you guys have more time to take down the current version now. Which knowledge area had the most questions in the exam?

They were pretty evenly distributed. What I found was that communications and risk management tended to come up, and perform integrated change control tended to come up a lot because Those connect with all the other ones.

Sorry, what?

Perform Integrated Change Control came up very frequently because those connect with all of the other processes.

Right. Got it. Okay. And what is the most important ITTO from the actual exam perspective, specifically the tools and techniques in respect to the particular process? And what documents are getting updated as outputs and why?

Yeah, I think, as I mentioned, things like the changelog, change requests are very important because that touches everything. Communications management is very important because everything— the communication of information itself is a very frequently used activity. So, hello? Hello? Um, is everyone still on? Let's see. Um, perhaps I can take some, uh, questions from, from the side. Um, Let's see.

Sorry, I just had myself muted and I couldn't unmute myself. Okay, here we go. I'm back.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. Was— was— okay, so the next question is from Patricia. She asked, was there anything within your brain dump that you were missing?

Uh, you know, if I had 30 minutes to do a brain dump, I could have done it very elegantly. I think, yeah, if there's, you know, and that defines back to where you struggled with in the tests. I'm obviously, I got a passing mark, so I'm content with the brain dump. But, you know, I think if you— the reason you have a brain dump is to just make sure you've got that top-of-mind information so that If you're stuck, you got something to go back to. So.

Right. Okay. Next question is from McGill. Can you confirm how the test rates each of the 49 processes?

How the test rates. One of the things after you get your exam outcome, You can look through, like it breaks it down very specifically within each area. It doesn't do it on a process by process, but it does by the tasks within each process area. So I was quite surprised it covered everything. So I think that all of the, all of the 49 processes are covered to some extent in the test.

Awesome. And How many questions that you felt that were very long or long, which took time to understand the question itself?

I would say in the range of between 10 and 20 questions, which really, you know, and by the same token, there are some which they're so— because of how I was prepared, I could recognize the answer on sight. So they would take less than 30 seconds to respond. So it balances out. I'm sure you could do a bell curve that, you know, that there's 10 or 20 outliers on both sides, some that are just so obvious you can do it. And then those balance out with the ones that, especially when there's a formula, that probably take a few minutes to just make sure you've got the details correct.

When you were doing the exam, what percentage of the exam would you say was just knowledge-based questions that was really straightforward?

I think a pretty high amount. I'm going to say between 60% and 70%.

Okay. So it kind of balanced out the longer questions that you saw?

Yes.

Awesome. Did they give you any water to drink?

In the lobby? Okay. The way the room is configured, you have a waiting area. So they had a water cooler in that. I brought my own bottle of Perrier, but I had to keep that in the locker. The test area, no food, no drink, just you and the terminal. So if you want to have a water break, let's say 2 hours, you need something to concentrate, you can be excused and then have water in the lobby and then return back to your test.

Awesome. Is there an easy, Is there an easier way for us to mark questions when we mark doubtful and go back and confirm again?

Well, you've got 2 ways. You can do it on the screen. You can flag it as review for later. And then you've got your pad and paper. In my case, it was a Sharpie and a laminated sheet. So you just note the number of the question that you're struggling with. As you write it, and then when you check it, you can refer back to it.

Okay. And then Daniel, what is the name of the simulator you described?

This, this is the new set of the e-exams, PM exams, where there's 10 in the knowledge areas, 5 in the process area. So I was describing the process areas.

I will link the link to the simulator below. And for those of you who don't have it, I can also link the page to purchase it if you would like.

I also want to give a shout out to Alan, who did weekend late-night service to help restore my access. And he was extremely professional and diligent, and I can't say enough good things about him. I credit my timing of the success to his going over and above. So thank you very much.

I will definitely let him know. I'm sure he'll be really happy to hear that. So I just linked the link to the exam simulator. So for those, for those of you on the call who are our students, you can just log in and see the new layout that we created. There's also the page to purchase it if you you guys do want to purchase that. Okay, so we're going to take a couple more questions and we have to wrap up for today. Okay, let's see here. Did you use a 6-week study guide?

Oh, I did the program, the 35-hour program that's done through ExamSPM. Now, I did that late— is almost a year ago. I did that like in November through December. And then, but yeah, I guess that would be within the 6-week timeline. So.

Right. Did you take all 5 mock exams in the simulator?

Multiple times, yes. And I recommend doing it multiple times. There's— I was commenting because I— it's just like the example of an arcade game. That's how old I am. Where if you got the high score, it would show your name. And the exams had kind of a leaderboard, so that challenged me. Okay, I want to beat this score. So I took it again to try to improve myself. So it's, yeah, definitely where you take it once and then you look at it constructively and then go to why you came up short and what knowledge you have to get. And then once you refreshed yourself, take it again because you also want to have confidence when you sit in that room that you don't get overwhelmed by writing the test. By the time I— last week, by the time I went to that, that was probably— I'd put in a lot of hours at my own computer doing those simulations.

Awesome. I just dropped the coupon code into the chat as well. If you want to get the exam simulator, you can get 50% off because you guys are on this call right now.

Oh wow!

Yeah, so later use that, use the coupon code and get access to that. Okay, let's just go on. Another question here: how much time is— so we'll take about 2 or 3 more questions and we'll wrap up for today. So yeah, how much time is required to prepare before sitting Oh, it's different for every different person.

I think definitely do the foundational knowledge, do however the exams at least once. So I think if you did a focused effort, definitely could do it within a 6-week end-to-end. And, you know, give yourself about 2 to 4 hours per day in the days immediately leading up to the exam. So.

And what were your scores from the simulator exam before sitting for the test?

I took them multiple times. So the first couple of times I took them, they were in the range of 60 to 70. And then I'd study and then I'd get them, nudge them to be 80 plus. So of the 5, I got 100 in all of them. And then I did one of those big 5 ones. And that one I got an 87. And this is like the night prior to taking the exam the next morning. So based on that, I felt confident of getting, getting the target amount in all 5 domains. So.

And then last question I'll take here is from Anna, and it's the order or the Are by knowledge area or are they random?

They are random, random. And you just— it's luck of the draw.

Okay. Well, thank you so much, Daniel, for coming on to this call and sharing your exam experiences with everyone in the community. I really appreciate your time. I know it's only 8:30 in the morning for you.

Yeah. I just want to give the message, if you ever feel discouraged, just keep pushing it. It's worth it. And when you get on the other side of it, you'll be so thankful and grateful. And it'll all— everything you do makes a difference. So give it that extra boost, that extra effort, and you're all capable of doing it. So I think that it's worth pursuing. So thank you.

Okay, well, thank you, everybody. And then last announcement is we're running the immersion programs of 2 days. Live program again next weekend if you guys want to sign up for that. So be 6 hours Saturday and Sunday, and the price for that is $297. So if you guys want to sign up for that, it's open now until end of Sunday before the prices— the early bird pricing is gonna go up. And we're going to send the recordings of this to everybody. Hope you guys enjoyed this talk with Daniel. Thank you so much again for coming on board, and I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend.

Thank you.

Thank you.